Monthly Archives: August 2016

How to Climb a 14er while eating low sugar and no nuts…What!

Ok, so before I get into everything…I am not suggesting you eat only low sugar foods and no nuts. That is just how I have chosen to eat right now for various reasons, which I will get into later. This is more of an interest travel post 🙂

For those of you who don’t know what a 14er is…a 14er is a mountain that is taller than 14,000 feet above sea level. There are those of us crazy individuals who choose to scale such mountains, take pictures at the top, brag to everyone about our accomplishments, and walk around limping the rest of the week. 14ers are usually more difficult climbs than other mountains and may be very long. The altitude is very high so it is easy to get altitude sickness if you climb too fast. My husband tends to get altitude sickness, which, for him is a headache.

We chose to climb Grays and Torreys, two 14ers which can be climbed on the same day because there is a ‘saddle’ between them which you can walk. So late Saturday afternoon we borrowed my dad’s truck, because we decided our very low clearance Maxima would not make it to the summer trailhead. We arrived at about 10:00 pm, set up the air mattress and sleeping bags in the bed of the truck (very convenient) and slept until the alarm at 3:00 am. By 4 am with bags packed, clothes changed, and flashlights on we crossed the bridge and started up the trail.

Now, I do not eat at 4 in the morning so we had to take our food with us. I am eating low sugar and no nuts so this is an interesting eating adventure to take hiking. While my husband is eating apples, grapes, dates, and salty trail mix I am snacking on other (very water rich and not happy for above tree line and lots of people) foods.

Low Sugar, No Nuts 14er Food Recipe

2 9.5 oz bottles of coconut water

2 packages micro or macro greens

4 6 oz packages blueberries (washed and in a ziplock bag)

4 pints cherry tomatoes (washed and in a ziplock bag)

1 jicama washed and cut (optional)

1 kolhrabi washed and cut (optional)

1 small bag sugar free granola or cereal (optional)

Place everything into one backpack with 4 water bottles and fall over from the weight 🙂

I ended up drinking the coconut water with the green powder and eating the blueberries and half the tomatoes. The biggest problem with this food is that there is no place to pee 😦 So we get creative 🙂

We made both summits and started down. As we got off of Torreys and back onto the general trail, my knee started to really hurt. I had to walk super slow and take quite a few breaks. My kind husband finally made me give him the camera bag so he was carrying the water, food bag, and the camera bag and then came the fun part. We had climbed quite a ways down and sat by a sign to rest my knee, as we started walking again little pieces of ice began to pelt us. We walked being pelted with hail the rest of the way down the mountain. I was like “we have to get to the tree line” Yeah, what you don’t realize when you leave in pitch black is that the tree line ends just about when you start climbing.

🙂 All-in-all we had a wonderful time and I would definitely recommend climbing Grays and Torreys. And if you are going to climb get there the night before so you can actually park in the parking lot. This is an extremely popular climb and a very beautiful sunrise.